Aielyn said:
As much sense as them having American accents. Accents change with time. Americans 100 years ago sounded different from how they sound now. But more than that, I'd like to hear a variety of accents. |
It is perfectly possible for the General American English 100 years (or any arbitrary time period, with the probability declining with a greater period) from now to sound similar to what we speak today. Especially in a large city where dialects tend to be standarized. I speak to my 91 year old Great-Grandmother three times a year, we can understand each-other clearly if I talk loudly enough. Not much she says sounds unusually foreign to me. And the few hitches had more to do with diction choice than accent or grammar. I've noticed the largest generational change is with people whose parents or grandparents speak a more regional dialect and their children adopt the more General American English. Otherwise GAE has remained pretty much slow-changing in terms of accent over the last 100 years. The difference between GAE today and 100 years ago doesn't sound even as large as the differences between regional dialects.
It is also perfectly possible that a language will undergo a moderate or huge shift, as well (see the decline of rhoticism in many English dialects between the mid 18th and 19th centuries.)
It doesn't seem likely that General American English would turn into a variety of accents found in 2015 Britain, though. That would blatantly break the immersion.
